Re: sci.bio.evolution mailing list
- From: John Edser <edser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:29:37 -0400 (EDT)
William Morse wrote:
I also haven't looked at Dewar. But as I understand Lotka's argument -
(this is secondhand through Odum)- the key point is not maximizing
entropy production but maximizing power production.
Power isn't quite the same as entropy - but if there's a "key point"
in the area, ISTM that it's entropy - rather than power being
maximised. It is entropy maximisation - not power maximisation
that has a concrete foundation in statistical mechanics.
JE:-
Hi Bill,
I think it is WHERE entropy is maximized/minimized that matters. What
makes life different to non living systems is that living systems are
required to remain discrete. Each Darwinian fertile organism is a
biologically separate and therefore competitive (as well as
simultaneously cooperative) thermodynamic system which has no other
choice but to reduce entropy within each unit of selection increasing
entropy outside each system. For each unit to maximize their own
biological power, entropy outside i.e. not inside each unit has to be
maximized.
Power
is a more elusive concept - requiring you to say whether work is
being done.
The supposed additional relevance of power to biology seems
largely illusory to me.
JE:-
Only when power production is delineated within separate Darwinian units
of selection can the power concept make biological sense. Biology is not
physics. Darwinism requires competing maximally reproducing
_biologically separate units of selection_ which reduce their entropy on
a non equal basis. These units of selection form populations within
which each organism is NOT just the sum of its parts _as a fitness_
whereas each population is. The net result is that adult (fertile)
organisms can alone be selected and populations of them evolve,
_excluding the reverse_ proposition. If the reversal is not excluded
then Darwinian theory is reduced to just non falsifiable. The
thermodynamic cost of life is paid for by non living systems which
equally but oppositely gain in entropy.
To dissipate sources of order effectively
you need to do the work of spreading your genome around
*anyway* - and using resources efficiently typically doesn't
benefit your descendants noticably more than their competitors.
JE:-
I see it in reverse: minimizing entropy on a unit of selection basis
requires a competitive (and cooperative) maximization of power per unit
of selection, i.e. using resources more efficiently does benefit your
descendants noticeably more than their competitors.
Regards,
John Edser
Independent Researcher
edser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.
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